          Women have been silenced for generations. There is a culture that encourages repression of female voices and this culture is seeing a new wave of powerful women who are standing up and bringing attention to the matter. In Lily Myers’ poem, “Shrinking Women” she addresses the trend of women, including her mother, growing introverted with age. In Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Bitch Planet the themes of female-strength and resistance act as a narrative to counter the suppression of women that is prominent in “Shrinking Women’s” theme. Kelly Sue DeConnick, a comic writer for Marvel, became fed up with the portrayal of women and decided to address what she saw, in her comic Bitch Planet. Bitch Planet is an in-your-face story where main character Penny is sent away for her noncompliance to Bitch Planet where “the fathers” dictate how to fix women’s supposed shortcomings. The fathers harass Penny because they don’t accept her body or her ability to fight back. The “father's” attempts mimic society’s standards that assert that women should be compliant and well behaved. The comic unapologetically attacks the grossly unfair standards and pressures women are up against. Myers’ poem works to highlight this mistreatment and describes, through her mother, how it has hurt generations of women. Women face a pressure that demands they occupy less space, have less pride, and have no voice. Both sources harshly criticize the patriarchal ideology that women should be shamed into silence and subservience. I plan to go more in depth with the argument that women have been censored and the undertones of this censorship are still very much visible.

           Kelly Sue DeConnick shattered and continues to shatter the stereotypical women of comic books. A writer for Slug Mag, Taylor Hoffman describes Bitch Planet as the comic that breaks through the trend in portraying only uber attractive women: “Even feminists can be fooled into thinking that comics are a boys’ game, all spandexed Barbie dolls for preteen masturbation.”  DeConnick’s new series bursts through this ideology, according to Hoffman, who offers a singular warning: “Well, get ready everybody—it’s time to sit down for some education and a tall glass of MRA tears with Bitch Planet. It’s a prison planet for bitches” (Hoffman). Although blunt, Hoffman is exactly right, and readers should be ready to experience women in comics like never before. The women of Bitch Planet are unlike those of previous comics. 

The Auxiliary Compliance Outpost is DeConnick’s dystopian planet for the noncompliant women of the world. It is on this planet that DeConnick challenges and beats down the sexist portrayal of women that has been far too common in comics. Johannah King-Slutzky from the Guardian praises the new faces of female comic characters stating, “Bitch Planet is refreshing to anyone who’s spent time with some of the more popular ne’er-do-well female superheroes like Harley Quinn or She-Hulk” (King-Slutzky). Instead of DeConnicks’s women being objects that cause titillation, she shows them as oppressed women who are subject to the critiques of the fathers. “The comic shows what appear to be television producers watching video feeds of the imprisoned women and editing their abuse—and willingness to fight back—into some sort of sensational reality show” (Hudson). Although Bitch Planet is a horrifying thought, it is meant to provoke discussion on the misogyny present in our world. DeConnick’s powerful saga was in response to her anger that most of the women in comic books were essentially unrealistic sex symbols. She changes them, not to be less sexy but to be more real in their empowerment. On the subject of their realistic portrayal, DeConnick explains, “these women are beautiful, but I wanted them presented with lumps and bumps and muscles and scars. Bodies as bodies” (DeConnick). Her women prove they are not only physically unwilling to put up with men’s crap, but also mentally.

           DeConnick successfully harnesses a more holistic troupe of women in Bitch Planet. Women are represented despite their body type, skin color, socio-economic status, etc. DeConnick creates a cast that importantly represents and reflects the disproportionate amount of women of color who are in prison. This inclusiveness fights back against the bombardment of media showing the one archetypal vision of what women should be: skinny and attractive and white. Not only is DeConnick pushing back on unrealistic body standards; she also creates a fictional world where women can actually physically fight back against oppression. It’s not news that women are still fighting against real life oppressors, but this overly violent battle against the belittling “fathers” feels like a victory even if it is a fictional one. 

In a powerful and provocative poem read aloud by Lily Myers, she acknowledges the undertones of society wanting desperately to lessen the very presence women take up in the world. She discusses the same oppression that DeConnick is aggressively creating characters to fight back against. Myers discussion is that her mom continues to grow skinnier from making room for the men who occupy more and are expected to do so. Myers doesn’t suggest that her father directly oppressed her mother into becoming smaller but she cites a different lineage that men and women come from. She validates this idea through a dialogue between her and her brother: “I have been taught accommodation./My brother never/thinks before he speaks./I have been taught to filter./“How can anyone have a relationship to food?”/He asks, laughing, as I eat the black bean soup I chose for its lack of carbs./I want to tell say: we come from difference, Jonas,/you have been taught to grow out/I have been taught to grow in” (19-26). Myers is not alone in her feeling that this is the undertone that comes along with being a woman. The oppression that tells her to eat less is forged from generations that validate this ideology that women should be less than men in every respect. The power in Myers addressing this outdated ideology is that it does the same thing that DeConnick’s comics do: it shines a light on inequality and reiterates how badly this world needs to embrace feminism.

           There are so many ways in which women are subliminally and overtly told that they’re not equal. One especially good way to drill this message into women is through attacking looks and letting women know how they should look. This is an attack perpetrated by both men and women, and it remains intact because of people’s lack of acknowledgment that it is a problem, and a pervasive one. The tendency to want women to look a certain way is projected into Bitch Planet. One character that DeConnick focuses on for an issue, Penny, is sentenced to Bitch Planet for being “wantonly obese” and for “follicular mutilation” (shaving her head). The Fathers become genuinely mad that Penny has the audacity to be fat and be content in her fatness. It is this mentality of being entitled to critique women’s bodies and looks that drives self-consciousness. In this case the Fathers are a good representation of the shaming women receive in real life over their bodies. What’s horrifying is that often times the shaming women are subject to in real life is just as overt as it is with the Fathers. In another issue, a woman is subject to prison because she drove her husband to an affair after she didn’t have interest in sex. The absurdity of this is that it is so very accurate. Hoffman highlights what this critique does, claiming, “Bitch Planet shamelessly stresses the pervasiveness of victim-blaming and the patriarchal sense of entitlement and privilege at the forefront” (Hoffman). The real issue is not that women are flawed, but that the systems of misogyny allow others to feel obligated to tear women down through critiques of their physical self. By placing this message of a “patriarchal sense of entitlement” in the audience's face is makes it impossible to be ignored, and hopefully the reader walks away understanding the parallel to the reality.

Not only do we live in a world where women's physical appearances are up for open discussion but also women's opinions are repeatedly being undermined by those of men. Through her lineage, Myers has learned to be apologetic when she speaks. The men in her family like her brother Jonas have a natural entitlement to their words and to having a voice. As a man, her brother Jonas has never faced the censorship that Myers has; she explains that Jonas “used to lose [his] voice every other week from shouting so much” (Myers). Myers on the other hand acknowledges every word she speaks. While her words beg to be listened to, her brother’s words take space and assume that space as though it belongs to them. Myers describes how she accidentally handicaps her own voice, saying, “I asked five questions in genetics class today and all of them started with the word “sorry”’ (Myers). Women are implicitly told that their words and opinions should be limited, and Myers exploration of the difference of her and Jonas’ tendencies emphasizes this. This is something that Myers is hyper-aware of, and she is resentful of the fact that she has inherited this heirloom of inward growth from her mother. Myers suggests that the reason for her families epidemic in “shrinking women” is that they make room for men and then can’t refill that space after those same men have left. 

Consider the fact that our culture drills the concept of subservience into the minds of women, whether it’s exemplified in the wages we earn, our portrayal in the media, the standards we’re supposed to fit, or the voice we’re supposed to have, It doesn’t shock me that women feel a pressure to shrink and make room for men. We live in a society where women are praised for being skinny, pretty, and passive but bashed when we fail to abide by those absurdly small reaching credentials. This is a society that praises “strong” men, who speak their mind, but bashes women and calls them “bitches” for doing the same thing. When women refuse to accept society’s ridiculous standards that dictate what we look like, how we act, and how we think, we challenge the patriarchal system and lessen the grip of subservience. In Bitch Planet if you can’t be neatly labeled then you aren’t of value and you will be sent away to Bitch Planet. DeConnick discusses the women who are not worthy in the eyes of society saying, “if you are a woman who does not fit in the box assigned her — if you are too loud or too opinionated, or too quiet or too religious, too atheist, too black, too brown, too any of the things that they don't want you to be — you are labeled noncompliant” (DeConnick). Penny fits none of these standards, because she is seen as too black, her hair; too unruly, too fat, and too unattractive. 

When Penny arrives and is on display for the fathers to scold her, they say things like, “Penelope, your fathers love you. It pains us to see you like this.” This verbal abuse continues down the panel of fathers with the intent to talk down to Penelope. They emphasize over and over again that Penelope has done something to herself. It is as if they think she’s a skinny girl trapped in a fat body, they cannot fathom that she may simply be fat with no resolution to become what they want her to be; skinny. The irony about their comments is that multiple men on the board are overweight themselves. As Penny’s story unfolds she appears to be in some sort of correctional school where we see “mother” try and augment Penny beginning with her hair. This is not only an attack on the way that Penny looks; it is an attack on Penny’s blackness. By attacking her hair, the perpetrators of the patriarchy seek to make her less of who she is. Penny’s hair is representative of her reality on Bitch Planet. As the mother comes at her head with a brush, Penny says, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, mother responds to this saying, “There’s nothing wrong, sweetheart. It’s just like you--it refuses to behave.” Penny’s confusion over this leads to a significant line that comes from mother. Penny asks, “What’s it supposed to do…?” to which mother replies, “Either curl up or lay down perhaps?” I don’t think this word choice is any mistake. Not only does society want Penny’s hair to be more white and more submissive to a brush, society wants Penny herself to sit back and be submissive to the social norms of females. The characters that encounter Penny consistently attempt to give her some piece of advice on how to straighten herself out, just as the mother wanted to do to Penny’s hair. What’s powerful about Penny is that when she is plugged into the machine that is supposed to show her ideal self the Fathers gear up to see some skinny, beautiful, less black version of Penny but instead they see the very same unchanged, untouched person. Penny although harassed throughout her life refuses to ever change her own vision of herself to align with someone else’s. This is the ultimate slap in the face to the Fathers and the power that they seek to exercise over Penny. 

The ultimate goal that the patriarchy has on Bitch Planet is to recreate women so that they see themselves through the eyes of others. One father asks Penny, “How long since you prioritized how others see you?” This question brings Penny back to her job at a muffin shop where multiple people verbally abused her. The men in the flashback say horrific things about Penny, one man scoffs, “No wonder she’s state sponsored, Christ. Look at her. Who wants to come home to that?” a second man replies, “Skins. They like ‘em big like that. It’s in their animal nature… Big assess, big lips. You ever fuck a skin? Wild.” Not only does this conversation have serious racial overtone but also shows how entitled men think they are to criticizing Penny. They have this attitude because of her womanhood, and this is exactly what the fathers are encouraging Penny to endure. The power in Penny as a character is that she does not care what anyone thinks about what she looks like. She’s absolutely content with herself and she is done hearing criticisms from everyone around her telling her that they don’t like the way she looks. Penny has harnessed a self-acceptance that not even the Fathers or Bitch Planet can strip her of. 

This comic seeks to look at the way that the Fathers think Penny can be helped. They see the problem as Penny not being up to everyone else’s standards instead of the real problem, which is that other people think they should be able to dictate what Penny, should and shouldn’t be. This story isn’t unlike the world we live in which is a horrifying thought, yet DeConnick does this on purpose to highlight the experience of black women in America. Men and women have these ideals that they want to see filled in the people around them, and when we see someone who breaks all of these ideals we want to call them invaluable and strip them of their integrity for being ok in who they are. DeConnick’s character Penny is the ultimate defiance to this horrifying narrative in our society. It’s vital to recognize that criticisms are not our god given right to throw at people. Women are too often made less of and told to be less because society wants them to be able to fit into neat boxes. This practice has horrifyingly been hardwired into people’s minds but it’s everyone’s job to shine a light on this just as DeConnick and Myers do. Both pieces highlight how imperative it is that feminism be accepted as a basic right. If our society doesn’t move forward and make progress for women a necessity, we will only be repeating history. Until there is resolution for women, it is everyone’s social and moral responsibility to be non-compliant in the face of the patriarchy.
